Thoughts from a combined Apple/Linux/Windows geek.

For various reasons, you might end up needing to hook up your iOS device directly to an Ethernet network without using Wi-Fi. For example, maybe you’re in an area with bad Wi-Fi reception. Or perhaps you are trying to do something that requires high bandwidth and your Wi-Fi access point doesn’t have the best speed.

Well, it turns out that iOS has supported Ethernet for a while. Obviously your iOS device doesn’t have an Ethernet port, so you have to use a USB-to-Ethernet adapter. As of iOS 10.2, there is even a settings screen that appears when you plug in a supported adapter. Older versions of iOS apparently still supported Ethernet, but didn’t provide a screen for setting it up, so you were probably stuck with the default settings (grabbing an IP address from a DHCP server). Now that there is a setup screen, you can configure it exactly how you want.

I tested it out with three devices tonight, and they all worked flawlessly: iPhone 6, iPhone 7, and iPad Air.